Falling to Ash (8 page)

Aerosol cans
. Would that actually work? Only one way to find out. I forced myself to take a deep breath and sprang up with arms outstretched toward the shelf, gripping the thin ledge with my fingertips. Edging along to the far side, my legs kicking against the wall to increase my momentum, I reached the nearest can and grabbed it. I dropped almost silently to the ground, gripping what I hoped was going to be our secret weapon.

I shook the can, thankful to feel a comforting weight and the soft
shhh
sound that told me it was at least half full.

Meanwhile, Jace had kicked Zombie Boy right where it hurt, which was admirably dirty for a guy fighting another guy – even if the opponent
was
a flesh-eating undead . . . thing. It seemed mostly unfazed by the impressive dropkick, but at least Van Helsing Junior was keeping its attention off me.

I pulled Detective Trent’s lighter from my pocket and set the flame to maximum height. I gritted my teeth and prepared to get my hands burned. It would definitely be worth it, if only I could take down what remained of Rick before it chewed on any other innocent nurses. Or patients. The thought of leaving it to wander the corridors of a hospital made me feel sick. Weirdly, I felt steadier now. Honestly, I just think my fear had receded in the face of the bizarreness of the situation.

Jace was face down now and struggling to crawl away as the creature grabbed his leg and pulled it toward its mouth.
Ew
, it was looking to try some leg next. Jace yelled a creative combination of obscenities which were tough to make out with his face against the floor, but – ‘Get it off me!’ – that part I could understand. He kicked out with his other foot and connected with the zombie’s chin, a move that looked more like luck than skill.

It didn’t matter how he’d done it, but Jace was free and that’s what counted. The zombie was out in the open, crouched down and shaking its head in disorientation. Soft red hair glinted under the spotlights and made my
stomach
twist with pity. This had been a kid – a kid not unlike me or even Jace. A boy whose life was over, no chance of coming back. Not even a chance at a half-life like mine.

I bit down on my pity and focused on Rick’s clouded eyes and blood-stained mouth. The remains of Nurse Fox scattered around the floor in glistening piles were all the reminder I needed.

I pressed the aerosol’s button and sprayed the hopefully highly flammable contents at the zombie. I flicked the switch on the lighter and watched with grim fascination as the vivid blue flame leaped to a surprising height and ignited the chemical-smelling mist.

The results were pretty spectacular.

It was like having a miniature flamethrower at my fingertips: kind of fun, but also incredibly scary. Not to mention painful. Flames shot out in an arc as I waved the can back and forth, sweeping a long line of fire at the zombie. With a
whoomph
that forced me to take a step back, flames shot up and hit the ceiling as Rick lit up like a torch.

The T-shirt caught fire first, quickly followed by the jeans. Finally the bright orange hair – the most human part that remained – burst into flames. His waxy skin burned and peeled, the smell of rancid meat becoming overwhelming in the restricted space.

The creepiest part of the whole spectacle was the
silence
. The zombie didn’t make a sound. None of the growls it had emitted earlier; no sign of pain or distress; more like a passive sense of
waiting
for the end. Was it – he – at peace? Death didn’t always mean the end of pain and suffering.

For me – for vampires – death wasn’t the end at all. I had gone on. I
endured
, whether I wanted to or not.

The thing that used to be a budding artist called Rick fell to its knees and burned.

Water suddenly sprayed onto my face, and I realized that the sprinkler system had kicked in. I tipped back my head and opened my mouth for a moment, closing my eyes against the impromptu shower.

Ouch
. My fingers were burning and I’d lost most of the skin on my left hand. Despite the pain, I couldn’t help being curious about whether or not my fingerprints would grow back when I healed. Vampires healed pretty fast, even the young ones, so I wasn’t worried about burn scars. A lot of the old myths about vampires were true, but not so much where fire was concerned. Sure, I could get burned and it would hurt, but it wouldn’t kill me. I’d heal. Maybe if a vampire was set alight the way I’d just burned Zombie Boy,
then
they’d be in trouble.

Whatever
. Right now I had to deal with the unfortunate remains of Rick, without getting anybody else killed. And figure out what had actually
happened
to him in the first place. Was his horrific transformation a fluke?
There
was nothing left of him – no chance of finding clues that might lead me to his murderer. I’d come here in the hopes of discovering something useful, maybe even something that could improve my standing with Theo’s Family and the Elders, but all I had was a pile of dust and an even bigger mystery to solve.

My heightened senses recoiled from the combined stench of blood and ash.

‘I gotta hand it to you, that was pretty cool.’ Jace used the hem of his T-shirt to dab at the blood that was still trickling from his nose. Sprinkler water stood out on his long eyelashes like fat diamonds. He blinked them away, then shook his head and splashed more water all over me.

‘Yeah, I feel so incredibly cool about ending a kid’s life.’ I tried not to look too hard at the blood on his lips; it was making my stomach hurt.

‘I didn’t mean it like that—’

The door handle rattled and Jace stopped talking, his jaw actually clicking shut. The color drained from his face as he stared at me and then at the door.

‘Oh, shit,’ we said in unison.

Chapter Six

‘HEY,’ A MUFFLED
voice said from outside in the corridor. ‘There’s something wrong with the door.’

Another voice. ‘Ah, hell. Foxy must’ve locked it – we need to get the damn sprinkler system shut off. I told her to leave the door open – the authorities are screaming for that kid’s body. The Spook Squad has put in an official request too. Some weirdo in a suit already turned up at Reception.’

‘Shut up,’ said the first guy. ‘You’re not supposed to talk about them.’

‘Aw, who’s listening down here? Stop being so damn paranoid.’

Jace took a visibly deep breath. ‘OK. This isn’t good.’

‘You think?’ I swiped angrily at a few tears that had leaked out. Considering the fact that we were both soaked through, I don’t know why I even bothered.

‘Well, at least one of us
is
thinking. How are we supposed to get out of here? Look what you did to the door.’

I shushed him. ‘Wait, I think they might be leaving.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Only to get the
key
. And then they’ll figure out it’s not even locked – someone
busted
it.’ He gave me a meaningful look.

The twisted mess that used to be the door handle mocked me. I bit my lip. ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ I said in a small voice. ‘I was trying to keep Rick
in
.’

Jace ran a hand through his water-darkened hair. ‘And what are we going to do about the evidence? Once they come in here and find all this . . .’ His voice trailed off. He shook his head, clearly frustrated at the whole new level of crazy his life had achieved. ‘There’ll be fingerprints all over the place and that’s not going to be good.’

‘Why do we need to worry about that? It’s not like they have us programmed into some sort of top-secret super-villain database.’

Jace’s eye slid away from mine.

I put my hands on my hips. ‘Why on earth would anyone have
your
fingerprints on record? You’re practically still a kid – you’re nineteen, right?’

‘Depends what ID I use,’ he muttered.

I rolled my eyes and concentrated on the door. I had to get it open, and fast. Someone had shut off the water,
meaning
it wouldn’t be long before those guys came back.

I gripped the handle and tried to force the bent metal back into shape – at least so the stupid thing would open. My extra vamp-strength was occasionally useful, but I sometimes wished I wasn’t the kind of girl who could pop the top off a beer without breaking a sweat.

With an ominous cracking sound, I wrenched the handle
off
the door. A hole surrounded by tiny, twisted steel teeth seemed to grin at me.

‘Oops,’ I said.

Jace was by my side in an instant. ‘What do you mean, “oops”? I don’t like the sound of “oops”.’

I tried to hide the door handle behind my back, and then realized it was pointless. He could see exactly what the problem was by looking at the gaping hole in the door. I turned away from the exasperation on his face, wondering if I could catch just one tiny piece of luck today. One stinking break, that’s all I asked.
I hardly ask for anything
, I thought.
Is this
really
too much?

Before Jace could explode, I touched the smooth surface of the door with a tentative hand. Hooking my fingers into the hole where the door handle had been, I tugged gently and was rewarded –
finally!
– when the door simply opened.

‘See?’ I said, giving my scowling companion a smug look. ‘No trouble. I did that on purpose.’

Jace grunted and pushed me to one side. ‘Follow me.’

‘Hey,
I
got us out of here. I’m going first.’ I tried to edge back in front of him, only to find he was already halfway through the door.

‘Stop making so much noise,’ he hissed as I tried to push him out of the way.

Grumbling under my breath, I followed him out of the basement room, wondering what on earth the authorities were going to make of the mess we were leaving behind. And what was this ‘Spook Squad’ that those guys had mentioned? They didn’t sound like people I wanted to run into anytime soon.

The corridors seemed endless, and I was certain there had been more lights on earlier. Eventually, we saw signs of life and I began to hope that we might actually get away without any further setbacks.

I don’t know why I even let myself think such crazy thoughts.

A janitor in gray coveralls and a heavy belt loaded down with tools half-heartedly mopped the floor near a door conveniently marked
FIRE ESCAPE
– but he didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary.

‘Just keep walking,’ Jace whispered. ‘He doesn’t care about us.’

As we passed the ‘janitor’, the staccato crackle of a walkie-talkie broke the quiet. We froze. The man cursed and grabbed for the black unit hidden among all the other crap in his utility belt. ‘Intruders are leaving
via
exit seventeen!’ he shouted into the walkie-talkie.

I didn’t hang around to see who he might be talking to, pumping my arms and racing further along the hallway. Jace’s footsteps pounded the floor behind me. I heard him panting for breath and forced myself to slow my pace. No way he could keep up with vamp speed, no matter how fit he was.

Slamming through the door at the end, I found myself in yet another corridor, this one lined with floor-to-ceiling storage lockers. It ended in a solid door. Locked. I examined the handle and it looked like one of those fancy hotel mechanisms with a slot for a key-card. I stepped back, preparing to kick it open – or, at least, to
try
– but Jace reached my side and pulled me back.

‘Wait,’ he said, still breathing heavily. He produced a bright yellow plastic card.

I stared at it for a moment. ‘Where’d you get that?’

‘That fake janitor’s belt,’ he replied, flashing me a quick grin. ‘Remember, I’ve been here before – I know a staff pass when I see one.’

I thought: He isn’t just a wannabe hunter, now he’s a thief. A pick-pocketing, vampire-hunting
thief
. He was even sneakier than me, which was a strange thing to realize. I kind of liked it.

He operated the key-card and the door opened. ‘After you,’ he said, sweeping me a low bow.

We ended up in a typical industrial basement. It was
huge
, badly lit, and smelled of laundry. It was clearly a storage room of some sort, which might mean . . . deliveries! I spotted an emergency exit all the way across the cavernous space before Jace did, my eyes adjusting to the darkness almost immediately.

‘Over there,’ I said, barely able to contain my excitement.

But the very moment I spotted our potential escape route, the door we’d just come through rattled.

‘They couldn’t have gotten through here,’ a male voice declared.

A woman replied, ‘I’ll be the judge of that. Just get it open.’

I froze, like a rabbit caught in a wolf’s gaze, but Jace herded me over to what looked like a utility closet against the wall. He pulled open the door – thankfully, it swung open on well-oiled hinges – and nudged me inside, putting a finger to his lips before following me into the cramped darkness. The closet was empty apart from a long coat and several uniforms hanging from a rail attached to the ceiling. I wondered if I’d find Narnia if I kept walking.